One of the most important steps in the great American art of patchwork quilt-making involves the tasks of cutting many decorative and colorful fabric pieces into the shapes that will be useful in the final quilt product. In the past, the task of cutting the fabric pieces has been laborious and time-consuming, and did not always yield fabric pieces that are uniform enough in size and shape to be useful.
The most common method of preparing pieces for a quilt involves cutting a cardboard pattern and then tracing with a pencil on the fabric. The pattern is then cut out individually. Alternatively, the fabric is held in place manually and the excess fabric trimmed with scissors. The main disadvantage of both of these methods is the fabric tends to shift, sometimes causing the pieces to be cut inaccurately. Additionally, the former method is time-consuming because of the extra step of tracing. It is also less useful on dark fabrics.
This problem of adequately producing a finished piece of fabric or quilt of a particular pattern has been addressed by a number of U.S. Patents including U.S. Pat. No. 2,411,328 to MacNab; U.S. Pat. No. 3,745,656 to Sweeney; U.S. Pat. No. 3,949,629 to Johnson; U.S. Pat. No. 3,837,084 to Johnson; and U.S. Pat. No. 1,053,986 to Axelrod.
The patent to MacNab discloses a dressmaker's pattern formed of the usual thin, tissue-like paper, cellophane or other similar material. A relatively weak adhesive is applied to the pattern for temporarily securing it to the fabric during cutting.
The patent to Sweeney teaches a pattern-making template for producing highly customized garments which includes a number of template sections or pieces. The individual template sections are freely movable with respect to one another, so that the overall size and shape of the resulting template as a whole, and hence, the pattern produced by tracing around the margin of the adjusted template, may be varied in order to conform to the proportions of the customer.
The Johnson U.S. Pat. No.3,949,629 shows a method of cutting fabric pieces for garments, employing four magnetic objects, a horizontal planar cutting surface and a thin paper sheet pattern piece. The magnetically attractable object facilitate the positioning of the thin paper sheet pattern piece, with respect to the fabric, when placed atop the horizontal planar cutting surface prior to and during the cutting operation.
The Johnson U.S. Pat. No. 3,837,084 teaches a method and device for temporarily retaining and adjusting a paper pattern on a piece of cloth that is about to be cut. The device includes a small, flat magnetic plate and a heavy, small piece of metal. Once the magnetic plate is placed on the underside of the pattern, placing the heavy piece of metal is then placed over the face of a paper pattern. When properly arranged, both the paper pattern and the fabric to be cut are clamped between the metal object and the magnetic plate.
The patent to Axelrod discusses a method of producing fabric pieces for a patchwork quilt involving the use of relatively rigid, adhesive backed material, such as cardboard, which is adhered to the surface of the fabric to be cut for the patchwork quilt. The patchwork section is then cut out, with necessary seam skirts located therearound, using the edges of the cardboard as a cutting guide. Finally, the cardboard is removed from the fabric piece and the fabric piece is sewn into the quilt.
All of the foregoing patents fail to discuss the use of magnetic pattern pieces as disclosed by the instant invention. The instant invention is superior to the prior art in that the instant magnetic pattern pieces are small, lightweight, inexpensive and do not leave a residue on the fabric from adhesive backed pattern pieces. Furthermore, the magnetic pattern pieces serve as a cutting guide, while simultaneously holding the fabric in place during cutting.